GHANA'S NEW CHALLENGE: Curbing cyber crime menace

UTCHE OKWUOSAH

Sakawa is solely and essentially a cyber crime that could be regarded as a complex version of Nigeria’s famous (or is it infamous?) 419. It also has more impactful result because it is a double edged sword, capable of cutting down both the victim and the assailant. Perhaps this excerpt from a feature write-up by a Ghanaian, Stephen Atts Owusu, picked up from the Ghana web site, will give some useful insight. Titled Sakawa Hysteria, Ghana’s 419, the article acknowledges Sakawa as complex and terrifying and goes on to say: What makes it serious is that, different groups of people have joined this to get rich quick. Students, the unemployed, businessmen, pastors, and even gainfully employed people have tried it. These groups approach SAKAWA in different ways
The students go to the internet cafes. They create Skype and search for contacts and begin a chat with them. As they get more familiar, email addresses are exchanged. The student will then write an email to the person who he now knows as a successful businessman. He will tell him that his father was the majority share holder in Stanbic bank (or other banks), and that after his death the shares were transferred to him. Since he doesn’t know anything about banking, he would like to sell his shares to him. In many cases they have succeeded in swindling unsuspecting British and Americans of huge sums of money.

Now, the next description illustrates the unique type of Sakawa which distinguishes it from 419.
The second group is the one that consults fetish priests like Kwaku Bonsam. The kind of financial assistance you will need from him is known as blood money (mogya sika duro). The type of blood he will demand from you depends on how fast and how big an amount you want to have per week or month. They sometimes demand the blood of a baby, a boy, a girl, a woman or a man. These people are often killed to get their blood. Even the blood from a woman’s menstrual period is sometimes demanded.
For those people who cannot afford human blood the fetish priest will instruct them to go out naked at dawn for three days. They should only return home when somebody else has seen them. The person who sees their nakedness will go home to die but the fetish priest will not tell them this. The fetish priest gives them a secret code which they say anytime they want a snake to appear. The snake does not bite but anyone who beholds it will lose money unless the snake is killed. These snakes are made to appear mostly at market places and lorry stations where the owner is sure to get so much money from so many people.
The writer concluded: These things normally crop up when students cannot pay their fees, high rate of unemployment, commodities becoming very expensive, people turning more to pastors for a miracle and many more.
A young, twenty-year old, female high school leaver interviewed by BusinessDay, because the scam activity is dominated by the very young ones in their teens and early twenties, said that a number of her peers were involved in the Sakawa scam. She told a story of a former male classmate of hers who barely managed to complete high school because of scarcity of funds to pay school fees but now has his own flashy car and an ongoing construction of his own personal house.
I could not believe the transformation I saw when I ran into him, she said (name withheld). He was well dressed and driving this fine, I am sure, expensive car. He and his mother were leaving in some run-down house in those days, but he told me, as he was trying to impress me with how life has become better for him, that he has moved his mother into a fine apartment while he is building his new home. Sir, she exclaimed as if re-living the initial surprise, I could not believe my eyes. That was when I knew that it would be very difficult to convince our youths to leave this sakawa business. Since then, the erstwhile shy and easily embarrassed young man, has continued calling our respondent (who is quite a pretty girl from an upper middleclass family) and asking for a date.
She went on to recount the stories making rounds amongst her peers that the Sakawa boys make their money on the net by charming their victims to get them do exactly what they ask them (the victims) to do. They go into covenant with some evil spirit through a witch doctor who usually asks them to sleep in a coffin for three or seven days. After three days, some of them don.t survive because they die in the coffin, and those who survive acquire the power and then use it to charm the victims they meet on the net. She said that some cut off their toes or any other hidden parts of their body and offer them as sacrifices to the assisting demons. This dimension to the complexity to the Sakawa phenomenon has been on the media and discussed openly on radio and television, as revealed in the public confessions of repented practitioners.
Again, our web writer, Stephen Atts Owusu, sheds some light: All those who consult the fetish priest are instructed by the fetish priest to have more white cars in their fleet of cars. It is a common sight in Ghana to see the newly-rich, thanks to SAKAWA, driving in Porsche, Hummer and Mercedes Benz cars all white in color.
Early May, or thereabout, this year, it came to light that Ghana has been listed amongst the world’s ten countries where cyber crime is prevalent. This generated a whole lot of public debate on the media, and even got referral mentions in Parliament. That was when it dawned on Ghana that this was no longer a matter to be joked with. The implications were many and far reaching as it affected Ghana.s external relations, national economic prospects and the integrity of her future generation as the scam is predominantly perpetrated by the youth.
Not surprising, following series of eye opening expose and confessions, especially on the radio, a group of youthful government officials recently organised a conference to which they invited the youths of Ghana to talk about the menace. The move was to counteract the already emanating model effect of the nouveau riche image being cut by the young successful fraudsters. The youthful and, by all standards, successful, government officials had appealed to the gathered youths to find their models in them who have used no sakawa or juju means to achieve their no mean status today. To be young and be qualified to be entrusted with the responsibility of the governance of one.s nation cannot be regarded in any other way but noble and successful. They urged the youths to emulate rather, instead of the Sakawa superstars whose money is blood money.
Another Ghanaian sociologist writing on myjoyonline captured the trend this way in one of his articles. I believe many have realized that rather unconsciously a Ghanaian dream has been developed. It is a dream that can be simply described as being about wealth and fame. We idolize things such as big mansions and plush rides. We idealize fame and claiming one’s name It is these same ideals that push a great number of students and young people into acts such as sakawa.
The simple explanation then is that some young guys engage in sakawa because some friend or close ally is into it. Thus, as they roll together the sharpening of iron by iron takes place. They get awed by the glitz and glamour their friends present and end up being wooed into practicing Sakawa. In fact, that is one of the very popular ways by which most young people get into the blood money rituals.
He concludes: There is the need for a national orientation on what the goals and ideals of the Ghanaian society are. The government and other stakeholders of our society – the churches and other religious institutions, schools and NGOs need to play a role in this.
Indeed, the matter has whipped up a deluge of debates and propositions from the society, including churches, thus underscoring how much the threat of the menace is appreciated. The curbing of the menace, really, is the responsibility of all right thinking and responsible Ghanaians but, not much, or far reaching result can be achieved without government assuming and playing the role of an agenda setting organ because there is so much at stake here.
Already, on the website of some Western Countries, the caution about Ghana’s growing cyber criminality profile is becoming a prominent feature on their travel warnings. This is in contrast to the glowing picture of Ghana that used to be painted on such sites until about two years back. The effect of this cannot be overemphasized.
One American site, that of US State Department’s, warned thus: American citizens frequently consult the Embassy regarding questionable business offers sent by people in Ghana. These are scams and typically begin with an unsolicited communication (usually by e-mail) from an unknown individual who describes a situation that promises quick financial gain, often by assisting in the transfer of a large sum of money or valuables out of the country. A series of advance fees must be paid in order to conclude the transaction, such as fees to open a bank account or to pay certain taxes. In fact, the final payoff does not exist; the purpose of the scams is simply to collect money from the victim.
Another type of fraud is committed by persons claiming to live in Ghana or who claim to be traveling to Ghana on business, and who profess friendship or romantic interest over the Internet. Once a relationship has been established, the correspondent typically asks the American to send money for living expenses, travel expenses, or visa costs. Sometimes a hospital or doctor telephones to say that the friend has suffered an accident and needs immediate financial assistance to cover medical bills. There are other variations of this scam, but the common goal is to fraudulently obtain as much money as possible from the victim. Americans have reported losing thousands of dollars through such scams.
Now, this last one is just close to the mark because a very similar scam took place only a few weeks back involving a 60-year old French lady who was duped 14,968 by a 23-year-old boy in the guise of internet marriage promise. The INTERPOL had to step in to locate and arrest the boy.
Of course, one can ask: where is the big deal? After all, such has always been written about several other developing nations. The big deal is that Ghana has never been referred to as a nation of fraudsters and this is coming when Ghana needs genuine international investors the most.
Really, Ghana is in the brink of messing up the reputation it has taken years to build if this menace is not nipped in the bud. The current global economic crisis has seriously affected capital inflow in the form of investment funds, and while Ghana is working at developing ways and means of packaging the country as an attractive investment destination, the last thing needed is this Sakawa thing.
By the day, the internet is becoming a popular and convenient way of conducting businesses all over the world. With the growth of the Sakawa phenomenon, the fear is that in no distant future, if the scam is allowed to thrive, business opportunities, via the net, would be lost to Ghanaians. This is why people are looking on to government to step in and, not only provide policies that will address the crime, but also develop, or cause to be developed, technological systems that would help to check even more sophisticated computer frauds as the nation’s financial and business systems are getting more and more computerized.
This is why it was heart warming to have learnt from the Communications Minister that government is already proactive in addressing the matter from a broader base.
At the recent ITU World Telecommunication and Information Society Day celebration in Accra, the Minister of Communications, Haruna Iddrisu, made mention of the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 7772) under section 136, which he said, aims amongst other things, to develop a safe, secure and effective environment for the conduct of electronic transactions in Ghana. He had further revealed that his Ministry has already fashioned program to develop a National Cyber Security Strategy that involves the establishment of Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). This program would involve establishing a National Cyber Security Network that will interact with CERTs of key institutions like Banks, Government Ministries, Telecommunications, etc on a national network that would report any computer emergency for prompt response to avert any intended damage.
As the society look to government and all stakeholders for committed actions towards checkmating this scourge in the present, it appears that already some ray of hope could be discerned from the Minister’s rhetorical question at the ITU’s Telecommunication’s Day event: Can we for a moment, spare a thought to what (would) happen to the country if strategic computers are hacked into, or infected with a harmful virus to incapacitate the electricity distribution system, our port handling operations, the banks’ financial transactions, and aircraft movement. Perhaps, the government has, indeed, been prompted to work by this frightful vision.